CIA Director arrives in Israel amid raging conflict
William J Burns, arrived in Israel on Sunday to hold discussions with leaders and intelligence officials, the first stop in a multi-country trip in the region, New York Times reported citing US officials.
The visit comes as the US is trying to prod Israel to pursue a more targeted approach to attacking Hamas, allow pauses in the fighting for aid to enter Gaza and do more to avoid civilian casualties, according to NYT.
Washington is also looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Tel Aviv, providing information that could be useful about hostage locations or any follow-on attacks by Hamas.
A US official briefed on Burns' trip said that he planned to reinforce the American commitment to intelligence cooperation with partners in the region.
Burns will travel to several Middle Eastern countries for discussions about the situation in Gaza, ongoing hostage negotiations and the importance of deterring the war with Hamas from widening to a broader context, NYT reported citing the US official.
US officials have been visiting Israel at a regular cadence since war broke out after Hamas fighters attacked Israeli towns on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 people.
Israel has retaliated with a massive counteroffensive including air campaign and ground invasion into Gaza, where Hamas is in control.
More than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes since Israel began retaliating, according to Gaza's health ministry.
US officials said their estimates of the number of Palestinians killed was similar, New York Times reported.
However, a spokeswoman for the CIA said the agency does not comment on the director's travel, New York Times reported.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived on Friday to make the case to
